The Bible I use says "Now the Lord God had formed....." which implies that God already created the animals and the author was just reminding the reader that the animals were there.

Honestly, if you had ever bothered to address any of the many times I've asked you WHICH BIBLE you are referring to, you may have avoided this.

Any hope you'll answer that question now?

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

^^^ Thank you for taking the time to respond. I think I've learned a great deal from your response.

Finally, I have opened someone's mind.

Once you realize everything is perceived a certain way, your mind becomes free and open. There is no objective way to determine anything: size, color, distance, etc etc etc.

So there's no objective way to tell if your Bible is a really just a talking dog and that Jesus Christ you think existed was a time traveling alien playing a prank.

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Size exists only in the mind. There is no objective way to determine size. This is what Berkeley was talking about.

You're begging the question here. How do you know that size only exists in the mind? The answer is, you don't know - you can only assume that it does, and that is why it is begging the question.

Quote from: skeptic54768

To a human, a basketball is small. To an ant, a basketball is HUGE. What is the objective size of the basketball? Does the basketball have 2 different sizes at once? It's all based on perception, which is based on the mind.

Nonetheless, the basketball exists. We can measure its circumference, and that will not change regardless of who measures it, or what they measure it with. Only the units used to measure it will change. Its actual size does not.

Quote from: skeptic54768

Same thing with color. A person sees something as completely red and you see it as completely blue. Does the object have 2 different colors at once? No, because color only exists in the mind.

So close and yet so far. It's true, our perceptions of color are based on the sensory data that our brain takes in from our eyes, which means that someone with colorblindness will perceive less colors than someone without. But the actual frequencies of light don't change depending on who sees them. If you take the light frequency at 4 x 1014 Hz and show it to various people, they may perceive it as different colors, but the frequency itself will not change.

Quote from: skeptic54768

None of our senses escape the problem of perception, which is why things can only exist in minds. Ergo, God's mind is why everything exists.

Thanks to this, I've managed to pinpoint yet another contradiction in your reasoning. You see, logic is based on perception too. Your mind is totally dependent on what you perceive, and any logic you use is totally dependent on the reasoning processes within your mind - which are informed by what you perceive. So, the fact that you cannot escape the problem of perception means that your conclusion - that things can only exist in minds - is inescapably false. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about a human being or a brain in a jar - it is still dependent on sensory inputs to provide it with perceptions that it can then use for other purposes. Without those perceptions to give it information to work with, it has nothing. It would be like a hard drive without an operating system - it wouldn't be able to actually do anything.

So, even if your supposition that God's mind is why everything exists were actually correct (which is exceedingly doubtful), he would still have to have perceptions to work with, coming from outside him, in order to be able to have anything inside his mind at all. Same thing if we ever managed to make a self-aware computer program - it would be dependent on what it perceived in its virtual environment, but without humans to have written the programming code (and thus the environment we exist in), there would be no virtual environment to begin with. In short, even God would need an environment that predated him, that he got all of his information from, in order to create an entire universe within his mind.

Reminder: we are not just talking to skeptic or harbinger or Jailed. Many people log in and lurk, or read just for information. We are also talking to them, and we owe them some good rebuttals to the lame claptrap skeptic writes.

Point one: if god does not go where he is not wanted, how do people ever convert if they were not already Christians? And god does not seem to want to go very many places, if 25% of the planet or even fewer are the right kind of believer.

How do we account for all the folks who say they were evil horrible people who cared nothing for anyone, but then suddenly one day god spoke to them and turned their lives around. Overnight, they go from drinking and drugging and killing to bible-reading church-going model citizens, no opening of the heart, no softening of the will or any or that stuff. Just boom, instant believer. Or so they say.[1]

The other point is this: creation scientists (sic) are not scientists. They don't do any science-- don't do original research, don't test anything, don't invent anything or conduct any experiments. Nothing they have come up with works in application, or helps us understand anything about the world.

In all the thousands of years of trying to show evidence of the supernatural they have a record of exactly zero--cured not one disease, have built not one machine, have invented not one new process.

They just muddy the water that real scientists are using by trying to slap a sciency-sounding gloss on their religious beliefs. They argue themselves into logical corners and then retreat into semantics and abstract physics. How can they be considered scientists?

I met a guy who said exactly that-- he said he was a atheist and then one day, without warning or invitation, god spoke to him and the next day he started reading the bible and going to church....the rest of us are still waiting.

You haven't heard a peep from Him because you're an atheist. God does not show up where He's not wanted.

I feel like I'm repeating myself from months ago... Many of us were once sincere Christians that prayed daily and we never heard a peep. You were asked why months ago and never had an answer. Why does God ignore people like me but not others, like you? Plus what you say here doesn't jive with your conversion story. You said that you were an atheist that prayed to Yahweh to heal a dog, and he actually answered that prayer. God answered an atheist (and it contradicts what you typed). If I were to get on my knees today and pray and honestly tell God I want to accept his son as my Lord and Savior, I wouldn't hear or feel anything. Explain why.

If being an atheist isn't the reason God doesn't speak to us, and being sincere isn't the reason God doesn't speak to us, then what's the reason?

Honestly, I have no idea why God is not revealing Himself to you. All I can tell you is that He has revealed Himself to many people.

Perhaps God knew that I really meant I would dedicate my life to Him. A lot of atheists on here say things like, "If God existed, I'd spit in His face." With an attitude like that, I wouldn't expect God to visit you. If someone said they would spit in my face, I wouldn't want to go and see them. I'd want to stay away from them.

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Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)

How do we account for all the folks who say they were evil horrible people who cared nothing for anyone, but then suddenly one day god spoke to them and turned their lives around. Overnight, they go from drinking and drugging and killing to bible-reading church-going model citizens, no opening of the heart, no softening of the will or any or that stuff. Just boom, instant believer. Or so they say.[1]

I met a guy who said exactly that-- he said he was a atheist and then one day, without warning or invitation, god spoke to him and the next day he started reading the bible and going to church....the rest of us are still waiting.

Yes! How do you account for that, as atheists?

You don't see people claiming that unicorns changed their life around or leprechauns. It's always God doing the changing. This is why the comparisons you make between God and unicorns are invalid.

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Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)

People do say unicorns changed their lives-- if they are over 12 years old we dismiss them as crazy. If otherwise sane people say Allah or Brahma changed their lives around, do you just dismiss them as liars? Are not Allah and Brahma as unreal as unicorns?

God seems to go into prisons and convert people all the time-- I can't imagine a place where god is less wanted than that, but we get stories all the time of inmates finding god.[1]

Of course, it is interesting how the god people find in prison mainly depends on the type of religion that is followed by the people already close to the jail. Like, very few inmates in Saudi Arabia or India come out swearing allegiance to Christianity. And hardly any inmates in the US come out as Hindus.

Somehow, those poor abused people in the giant prison that is North Korea never get any word from Jehovah at all unless god's word is smuggled in by human beings. Amazing how god is so easily defeated by the lack of modern communication networks.

How do we account for all the folks who say they were evil horrible people who cared nothing for anyone, but then suddenly one day god spoke to them and turned their lives around. Overnight, they go from drinking and drugging and killing to bible-reading church-going model citizens, no opening of the heart, no softening of the will or any or that stuff. Just boom, instant believer. Or so they say.[1]

I met a guy who said exactly that-- he said he was a atheist and then one day, without warning or invitation, god spoke to him and the next day he started reading the bible and going to church....the rest of us are still waiting.

Yes! How do you account for that, as atheists?

You don't see people claiming that unicorns changed their life around or leprechauns. It's always God doing the changing. This is why the comparisons you make between God and unicorns are invalid.

So what about OTHER gods with contradictory cosmologies and moralities?

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Indeed. That's why I keep responding - it isn't because I think skeptic's likely to be swayed, but because I want to make sure anyone else reading this topic has access to rebuttals of his arguments.

I have said before that I am open to the possibility that God does not exist. But, this would be in the same way that I am open to the possibility that the sun or moon might not exist.

God has proven Himself to me like the sun and moon. So it would certainly be a challenge like no other to get me to disbelieve.

But the sun and the moon have not "proven themselves" to you. You know they exist through your normal senses and by believing what science says about the sun and the moon. Yet, you dismiss your senses (because god is invisible and undetectable to the normal senses, right?) and what science says (because science cannot detect any sign of any god-beings) when it comes to god.

For god, you make special allowances that you would never make for the sun, the moon and anyone trying to sell you a pair of shoes or a hamburger. You would not buy a magical, invisible all-powerful hamburger that cures sick dogs, would you? You would not be online trying to convince people that such a hamburger existed. You would not send your money off to a company that advertised magical all-powerful invisible flying shoes, would you? No matter what someone showed you written in a book or on a website, you would not believe it.

Easily, quite frankly. Most of these people hit a really low point in their lives - and that's when they're most susceptible to changing themselves. You don't need a divine entity who works to salvage them, you just need them being hit hard enough by life to realize they have to change.

Quote from: skeptic54768

You don't see people claiming that unicorns changed their life around or leprechauns. It's always God doing the changing. This is why the comparisons you make between God and unicorns are invalid.

Ah, but which god? If you happen to be in a Muslim community, it'll be Allah. If you live in India, it might be one of the various Hindu gods. If you happen to live in a place that is predominantly Christian, it'll be the Christian god. Ever consider why this is?

I just find it shocking that your opinion of Christians has fallen because of me, but when we bring up how our opinion of atheists has fallen because of Stalin and Pol Pot, you guys get upset and say that's not fair.

All I'm asking for is consistency on both sides.

Well, Skeptic, when you group law-abiding nonbelievers with mass murderers, no darned wonder we get upset!

And I really, really don't think you would want that kind of consistency. How would you like it, for example, if I likened you to the self-righteous SOB's who burned thousands of men, women and children as "witches"? Or even worse, what if I were to wish upon you the same fate that befell My heiðinn Norwegian ancestors around the turn of the last millennium? If humanity is to survive and thrive we have to start moving beyond that kind of thing, and name-dropping 20th century dictators is not helping.

A lot of atheists on here say things like, "If God existed, I'd spit in His face." With an attitude like that, I wouldn't expect God to visit you. If someone said they would spit in my face, I wouldn't want to go and see them. I'd want to stay away from them.

Paul was supposedly killing Christians, and then Jesus revealed himself to Paul, and then he taught another version of Christianity, to destroy it another way.

Hey, Skep, why is there a correlation with brain size and intelligence?

You tell me. Some people would say that an atheist who plays x-box all day eating cheetos is not automatically considered intelligent just because he's an atheist.

Most of that post was to draw you out on animal souls. You have asserted that the only way to explain consciousness is for it to be immaterial, and some ethereal product above atoms. (ie Dualism) Christianity gives little thought to whether animals also have eaten from the tree of G&E, or in fact have souls. The idea that animals have souls would have been dismissed out of hand, by any early theologian.

Since we can see that our genetics is similar to animals, it comes as no surprise to a modern biologist that larger animals behave in a conscious manner, similar to us. You have credited "thought" with souls, but animals also think. When you observe the way a dog behaves, it's clear that it behaves the same way as we do, at times when it should be feeling emotions. You can only have emotions, if you are conscious, since that's what comprises consciousness.

So, although it can't be proven, unless you become a dog for a day, it appears as if they have the same mental functions that we do, that Descartian dualists insist come from an ethereal realm.

If the soul has a function, it is nothing cognitive, or conscious. If animals (inc chimps) have no soul, then what do we get from a soul?

Hey, Skep, why do you discount the Many Worlds and Transactional interpretation of QM, which requires no observer?

What do you mean? Nothing can be described without an observer to describe it.

You've changed the goal posts. Why have you suddenly introduced "description" as a criterion for whether something exists or not. The MWI interpretation creates many worlds, some of which can be non-observed. The idea that things need an observer is Zen Buddhist, or Copenhagen interpretation. Are you a Zen Buddhist?

^^^ Thank you for taking the time to respond. I think I've learned a great deal from your response.

Finally, I have opened someone's mind.

Once you realize everything is perceived a certain way, your mind becomes free and open. There is no objective way to determine anything: size, color, distance, etc etc etc.

This "objectively" nonsense is old. You still haven't done your philosophy homework, have you? So you're just talking babble about stuff you haven't studied. You keep coming back to this flawed black/white thinking about absolute certainty. But that is a changing of the subject. No one is claiming absolute certainty (except you). And you have demonstrated that you actually have absolute knowledge of anything. Saying it is so doesn't make it so.

Besides from which, even though he's wrong about this stuff, not saying anything would imply that we have no answer to it. I think he's counting on that to a degree.

He ignores or dismisses any scientific,reasonable or even plausible explanation. He knows he is wrong,but will never admit it. It is like banging your head against a brick wall,it only feels good when you stop

But once again, you are assuming that the scientific approach is the best way to learn. This has not been proven. You can not use the scientific method to validate the scientific method. It's circular.

The use of logic, sound reasoning, critical thinking, and evidence are the tools we have for separating fact from fiction. If you are attempting to posit some other method, then please present the method and then demonstrate it's reliability for separating what is true from what is not true.

Size exists only in the mind. There is no objective way to determine size. This is what Berkeley was talking about.

To a human, a basketball is small. To an ant, a basketball is HUGE. What is the objective size of the basketball? Does the basketball have 2 different sizes at once? It's all based on perception, which is based on the mind.

Same thing with color. A person sees something as completely red and you see it as completely blue. Does the object have 2 different colors at once? No, because color only exists in the mind.

None of our senses escape the problem of perception, which is why things can only exist in minds. Ergo, God's mind is why everything exists.

It does not follow that b/c there is human perception (which is first person), therefore there must be some 'greater mind above all minds'. That is your unsupported assertion that you just keep SAYING over and over. And you know what? You will continually be told the same thing over and over: Saying it is so doesn't make it so. You actually need to meet your burden of proof. You can make unsupported claims all day long. It gets you nowhere.

Again, if you are admitting that you think solipsism is true then we'll go from there. But positing some 'God' thing (of which that term refers to nothing) is a meaningless empty assertion. Anybody can claim anything. It doesn't make it true just b/c you can claim it. Sorry.

I am sorry you feel that way. To me, everything I say makes perfect sense.

I just find it shocking that your opinion of Christians has fallen because of me, but when we bring up how our opinion of atheists has fallen because of Stalin and Pol Pot, you guys get upset and say that's not fair.

All I'm asking for is consistency on both sides.

Atheism is not a worldview or claim (like your religion is). It makes no claims, has no dogmas, and has no creed or doctrine. It is not a positive position on anything. So your comparison fails. You are making the common Christian error of thinking that atheism is some 'worldview' that people act from - when in fact it is not. Is this really that difficult from you to understand? Buddhists are non-believers in any deities too. What a person does NOT believe has nothing to do with the matter. What they DO believe does. Atheism does not tell you anything about what a person DOES believe. So again, you keep making a false comparison.

How do we account for all the folks who say they were evil horrible people who cared nothing for anyone, but then suddenly one day god spoke to them and turned their lives around. Overnight, they go from drinking and drugging and killing to bible-reading church-going model citizens, no opening of the heart, no softening of the will or any or that stuff. Just boom, instant believer. Or so they say.[1]

I met a guy who said exactly that-- he said he was a atheist and then one day, without warning or invitation, god spoke to him and the next day he started reading the bible and going to church....the rest of us are still waiting.

Yes! How do you account for that, as atheists?

You don't see people claiming that unicorns changed their life around or leprechauns. It's always God doing the changing. This is why the comparisons you make between God and unicorns are invalid.

NOPE. Absolutely false. There are lots of people in the world who have had "changed lives" (on varying degrees) due to false premises, misinterpretations, scams, errors, or outright lies. Are you really that gullible? Clearly.

I find that asking a theist to present evidence is like asking a brick wall to do push ups....

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

I am sorry you feel that way. To me, everything I say makes perfect sense.

Subjective, and thus not relevant. The goal is to explain your position to others, so it simply doesn't matter if it makes perfect sense to you or not if it doesn't make sense to other people.

Quote from: skeptic54768

I just find it shocking that your opinion of Christians has fallen because of me, but when we bring up how our opinion of atheists has fallen because of Stalin and Pol Pot, you guys get upset and say that's not fair.

Seeing as how you've never been a murderous dictator in the first place, the comparison is not at all apt. This would be more akin to me saying that my opinion of Christians has fallen because of Hitler and other murderous Christian leaders of this century (of which there have been several), not to mention their use of torture and concentration camps. But if we get into pointing fingers like that, we'll be at this a while and not really get anywhere.

Quote from: skeptic54768

All I'm asking for is consistency on both sides.

I have no problem condemning any murderous leader, whether atheistic or religious. I also have no problem criticizing bad arguments no matter who made them. So, no problems with consistency here.